1st Lesson- Week 1

1st Lesson: 06/05/08

During the 1st lesson, the groups were formed. My group for this piece of assessment consists of Naomi Kohbelic, Tasol Song, Sonya Jeong and myself. I believe that as we are all quite close to each other and we know how each of us work, that these factors will be the benefits of working together as a group. I'm quite sure that we'll be able to complete this task with accuracy, efficiency, and using good communication and co-operation.

Firstly, we gathered around a computer and started to brainstorm a few potential not-for-profit institutions. We came up with;
- World Vision
-Greenpeace
-Guide Dogs
-Red Cross
-The Australian Cancer foundation
-The Invisible Children Movement
-Salvation Army
-Amnesty International
-Surf Lifesavers
-The Ronald McDonald House

After a quick discussion of each not-for-profit institution, we decided that 'Greenpeace Australia' would suit our group's interests the best. Our group worked co-operatively and efficiently and voted for each NPI to reach our final decision. Sitting around a computer, our group began to research about Greenpeace and its main values and goals.

"Greenpeace is a leading independent, non-profit campaigning organization that uses peaceful direct action and creative communications to expose global environmental problems and to promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future. "

We found out that Greenpeace is campaigning to ;
- stop climate change
-prevent deep sea destruction
-protect the ancient forests
-keep Australia free from genetically engineered foods
-end the nuclear threat
-halt overfishin
-create a peaceful future
-end whaling

We came to the conclusion after a short discussion that 'stopping climate change' and 'ending whaling' were the topics that appealed to us the most. We visited the Greenpeace Australia Pacific website and decided that we would create a product to promote 'ending whaling', a major Greenpeace campaign.

We discovered that Greenpeace Australia Pacific is currently campaigning to stop the Japanese fleet killing more than 1000 whales this year. This includes, 50 endangered fin whales, 50 threatened humpback whales and 935 mnke whales. Greenpeace wants the supporters of this campaign to sign the petition, write to the Australian government, send letters to the Japanese Prime minister or phone/contact politicians, expressing their discontent of the situation. Our group decided that this will be the purpose of our product. We also found out that Greenpeace relies heavily on the donations from their generous supporters. 'Greenpeace is an independent campaigning organisation. That's why our financial supporters are our lifeblood.' http://www.greenpeace.com.au/

I did an individual research on what the fundrasising techniques Greenpeace is using to support their campaigns. I found an article written about a Greenpeace marketing and fundraising director Cathy Anderson. The article said;

"Greenpeace has been one of the pioneers of face-to-face recruitment, in which young recruiters sign up supporters in the street for regular direct debit donations. It has been one of the fastest growing and cost-effective recruitment strategies in recent years."

The types of donations Greenpeace offers;

Public donations. These can be accessed through events, raffles, street collections, advertising, direct mail or email and more. Supporters/donors. If you already have some financial supporters/donors, you can approach them to give a repeat gift, via direct mail, telephone or face to face.
Foundation grants
Government grants
Corporate sponsorship/donations

I think that Greenpeace uses a lot of websites to promote and raise money for their campaigns. It is advertised widely on the internet.

Greenpeace Australia Pacific also suggests starting up individual fundraising events such as;
Quiz evenings
Fun runs
Garage sales
Harbour cruises
Club nights
Film nights
Lawn bowling competition
Bush walking

We thought that for our target audience for the product it would be easy to target university students, as many are very passionate and are the leading generation who are responsible for changing the world so that there is a better future for the next generation. So far, we have come up with the idea of doing an event, a rock concert or a party, to get the target audience involved. The money raised would go the campaign and at the same it will be raising awareness about 'whaling'. However, we are yet to finalise this idea and it may change, the target audience and the proudct.

During this lesson and through my individual research I have already learnt a lot about Greenpeace and its intentions and goals. Also about how they conduct their fundrasing for their campaigns. Both, the group work and my own individual research has helped me to feel more confident about this task and grasp a better understanding of this topic. It has given me new ideas and also has intriguied me to become more interested about NPIs.

So far, I think that our group is making great progress on this piece of assessment and I believe that we will be continuing to make good progress on this task. We are working very well as group as well as individually.